We Blame You
by claraowl
Summary: While Artemis is paying a visit to Holly in Haven, a combination of rather strange events lands them in an awkward situation... in which the only thing of which they are certain was that it was all Foaly's fault. (Of course, Juliet wasn't much more innocent, but her part was more unintentional.) Hartemis oneshot!


**Hello, and welcome to my 2****nd**** AF fanfic! I apologize in advance for any OoCness, and sincerely hope that you enjoy this. I do not own **_**Artemis Fowl.**_

**I've left the pronouns the way they usually apply to avoid confusion. This will make sense very soon.**

**Shout-out to ObeliskX, who requested this. ;) I hope it meets your expectations!**

It was all Foaly's fault. Yes, the two of them were not technically supposed to be in his lab, but really, who in their right mind would leave such an obviously dangerous machine running?

It had started as a relatively ordinary day – as ordinary as it gets, anyway, when Artemis Fowl II is visiting Haven. (Well, he wasn't actually belowground to visit Haven – he was there to visit some of his acquaintances, who resided there. Some would argue that he was only there for one acquaintance in particular, but as the elf in question stubbornly denied this, the subject shall not be much further pursued.) The fairies were, by this time, rather used to his occasionally coming belowground, and were resigned to it. Indeed, a few in particular looked forward to these times. He was, of course, accompanied by a Butler; however, that day's Butler was not Domovi. Today, due to the tiny design of Haven, Juliet accompanied Artemis, and Domovi was relegated to the task of making sure that Beckett and Myles did not set themselves or the house on fire, as they were wont to do. Therefore, Artemis's day was speckled with many more wry remarks than usual, accompanied by a heavy dose of teasing – their day was, after all, to be spent entirely in the company of Captain Holly Short.

"Oh, how wonderful," Juliet smirked, leaning against the doorframe of a certain centaur's laboratory, "there are cameras in here."

Holly rolled her eyes. "Juliet, of course there are cameras in here. Foaly's so paranoid that he once wore a tinfoil hat for three years straight while he was completing a project. We had to cut it off of his head."

"But that's not the point at all!" the female human beamed. "Now every moment of your flirting can be recorded for proof!"

"We do not _flirt_, Juliet," Artemis interjected icily from his spot at Foaly's desk, where he was flicking through an undoubtedly confidential folder. "We converse."

"Sure you converse," the bodyguard laughed, "just like an old married couple."

"I fail to see what your pitifully small brain decrees amusing in this situation." The papers were set aside – now memorized – and he moved on to the computation device before him. "Have you been in the wine again?"

"Of course not! I would never drink on the job, even if my job is irritatingly stubborn," Juliet declared defensively. "Besides, isn't it obvious?"

Artemis said nothing, merely clicking through the files on Foaly's machine by way of a response. Holly chose to take up the conversation where her – well, where Artemis had left off. "What's obvious, Juliet?"

"Oh, the missus is speaking for the couple now!" she squealed happily, eliciting a shared eye-roll from the 'couple' in question.

"Don't bother, Holly," Artemis sighed. "Even I've yet to get a straight answer out of her when she goes off on such tangents."

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" Holly inquired, settling herself on the edge of the desk next to Artemis.

"I can access all of this from home," he informed her calmly, glancing up at her. A slight grin crept onto his face when she gave a long-suffering sigh.

Her tone became teasing, "Then why are we in here?"

"To irritate Foaly, of course. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if you were aware of that fact when I suggested visiting the LEP headquarters." His left hand moved from the keyboard to the desk, where it rested inches from Holly's hip.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she smiled, and raised an eyebrow at his vaguely-subtle action.

"Well, that wouldn't be the first time, now would it?" he smirked, and quirked an eyebrow in return, as if to answer her unspoken question.

"Watch your tongue, Fowl," she growled, shifting her weight; her hip was now slightly closer to his fingers.

"Why? Is it turning _foul_?" Juliet piped up, unable to resist the pun. The two at the desk jolted slightly; they had forgotten, in their little back-and-forth, that Juliet was with them. She was then rewarded for her efforts with two rather sharp glares. She stuck out her tongue. "Fine, be jealous of my brilliance. I'm sorry that I interrupted your_ flirting_."

"How was that anything but an ordinary conversation?" Artemis inquired sharply, one eyebrow raised.

"Defensive, much?" Juliet grinned, walking towards them. "Did you think that I wouldn't find out about your little post-Christmas tryst?"

"Blame Beckett," Artemis stated simply, which was unusual for him, though he did utilize some rather wonderful alliteration.

"And why should I do that, Arty?" the bodyguard beamed.

"Do not call me that," he reprimanded, his voice suddenly sharp.

"Right, I forgot," came the giggling reply, "only your mother and girlfriend are allowed to call you that."

"You're speaking nonsense, Juliet," Artemis sighed. "Holly refers to me by that nickname."

"My point exactly – after all, much madness is divinest sense."

"You read Emily Dickinson?"

"Well, yeah." Juliet shrugged. "She has good poems."

"Holly," Artemis turned to the elf in question, "it appears that all our efforts to protect this world have come to naught."

"Why?" she inquired, noting that his fingers were now a mere centimeter away from her hip.

He leaned closer to her, his fingers ghosting across her hip, and stage-whispered, "The apocalypse has come – Juliet reads poetry."

"The horror," she replied, her voice nearly hushed, her eyes shining with contained laughter.

"I can hear you, you know," Juliet drawled. "As much fun as it is to watch you flirt, I will not allow myself to be mocked in the process."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Holly murmured, causing Artemis to crack a smile.

"Indeed," he concurred, getting to his feet and brushing nonexistent dust from his trousers. He then – due to the tiny bit of Orion screaming at him from the deepest recess of his brain – offered his hand to Holly, to help her down.

"Thanks, Orion," the elf laughed, accepting his unnecessary yet gallantly intended assistance, "but I don't think that was truly necessary."

"My apologies," Artemis sighed. "He occasionally surfaces from a brain crevice to announce his general displeasure with my lifestyle."

"Hmm… any messages for me?" she asked playfully. Their hands had yet to part.

Artemis averted his eyes slightly, and some color came into his porcelain cheeks. "He told me to tell you hello, and that his undying love, affection, and admiration for you have only grown."

Holly, pink-cheeked, rolled her eyes at this announcement; Juliet, for her part, was nearly incapacitated by laughter, having heard fewer of these pronouncements than Holly during Orion's reign of idiocy. It was due to this laughter – and the resulting weak knees – that the entire trouble of the situation was brought about… so perhaps it wasn't _entirely _fair to blame Foaly for the whole affair; after all, Juliet and Orion were also at fault. Orion was the reason for Juliet's weak-kneed laughter, after all, and Juliet was the one who crashed into Holly and Artemis, sending them stumbling backwards. Artemis, to his credit, did try to regain his footing – and Holly, for her part, did attempt to brace them – but neither of them counted on Artemis's less-than-graceful feet getting caught in a rather unsightly tangle of wires. Disregarding the fact that Foaly having a tangle of wires on his lab floor was blatantly suspicious, the casual observer may have noted – as the pixie in question paused outside of the lab on his way to give a report – that the machine into which the Mud boy and the elf fell was set to 'switch.' The casual observer, however, did not notice this; he was far too busy chuckling at the expressions on the faces of the falling beings in question… which were, to be perfectly fair, quite amusing.

The laboratory was then filled with a bright purple glow; this glow then separated into pink and blue balls of light, which entered Artemis and Holly, respectively. Juliet and the casual observer were temporarily blinded, and the casual observer decided that alerting Foaly might be an excellent idea at this point. By the time Foaly arrived, Juliet had regained her eyesight, and the two in denial were regaining consciousness… and noticing that something was very wrong indeed.

Holly sat up slowly, moving gingerly and feeling as if tiny sledgehammers had pounded her perfectly flat. "Ugh," she groaned; her voice came out deep and slightly gravelly. Her hand flew to her throat, and her elbow alerted her of a distinct lack of something she'd been accustomed to since puberty. "Huh?"

Artemis rolled onto his stomach and noted, with more than a little panic, the appearance of the things which Holly was suddenly missing. "What machine –" he stopped speaking suddenly; his voice was high, feminine. Surely not… that was absurd….

Juliet, for her part, was aware of two things: One, the two before her looked hysterical. Two, and more importantly, Domovi was going to kill her if she didn't find a way to fix this before she had to take Artemis back up to the surface. "Hey, Artemis, at least your name now matches your gender."

"Is now really a time for jokes, Juliet?" Artemis demanded, brushing his suddenly-long hair out of his face.

"It's true," Foaly smirked from the doorway. "Holly, your hair is exactly the same. Interesting."

"That's all you have to say after I've been turned _male_?"

"It's not a disease, you know. You don't have to sound so insulted."

"Yes, I do, actually. Turn us back."

"No can do," Foaly sighed, observing the two on the floor of his newest invention – and then he began to laugh hysterically.

"What now?" Artemis demanded, attempting to sound dignified but instead sounding mildly whiny.

"You two look so ridiculous!" Foaly guffawed, pawing the ground with his hooves. "I haven't laughed so hard since I showed Trouble the video of you two from Christmas!"

"You have that on _video_?" Holly yelped deeply, distressed. (Let it be noted that a deep yelp is a bizarre sound, which resulted in Juliet's next unsightly phase of giggling. This time, fortunately, she did not knock into anyone – she was, after all, still seated on the floor.)

"Of course," Foaly snorted. "Who do you take me for? Someone of low intellect?"

"Yes," Artemis replied immediately.

"You left yourself wide open for that shot," Juliet giggled from the floor.

"The process can be reversed, can't it?" Holly asked, getting to her feet and noting how uncomfortable her uniform suddenly was.

"Er… about that," Foaly grinned, observing with glee as Artemis took Holly's offered hand to stand.

"Yes?" Artemis inquired, attempting to sound vaguely menacing, but instead sounding mildly squeaky. He then concluded that attempting any more of his usual tones would only result in ridicule; he was, after all, sporting a rather feminine voice box at the moment, which clashed horribly with his usual mannerisms.

"I haven't tested the reversal process yet."

"So you are incapable of reversing the process?" Artemis inquired, one neat eyebrow quirked, arms folded awkwardly over his chest.

"I never said that!" Foaly protested defensively. "I just haven't had the time to safely conclude that the particular arrangement of wires in there will _not_ result in unsightly and frankly messy deaths."

"So clean, sightly deaths are permissible?" Juliet inquired, having recovered from her giggle fit.

"Naturally. After all, death is rarely fatal with these two."

"It is fatal, technically speaking," the Mud boy interjected. "It's just not always permanent."

"Fortunately for the world," Holly muttered, hands in her uniform pockets.

"Indeed," Artemis concurred. "That being said, you owe us, Foaly."

"And should therefore change us back extremely quickly."

"And with whose devices did you save the world?" the centaur huffed.

"Yours," Holly admitted, "but it took you several adventures to simply leave your office and join in on the actual fighting."

"And therefore, you still owe us. Now either change us back, or allow me to fix your incompetent machine."

Artemis had struck a nerve. "There is nothing wrong with my gender-bender! It works perfectly!"

"So turn us back," Holly said, smirking.

"Your precious Arty is rubbing off on you, Holly. You've been spending too much time together."

"Don't change the subject, Foaly," Holly hissed, while Artemis registered a faint complaint about the use of his nickname.

"So you admit it!" Juliet shrieked triumphantly.

"I fail to see how that admitted anything."

"It didn't deny Foaly's claim!"

Holly pushed her hand against her forehead and realized that it was absolutely pointless to argue about this with Juliet. She sent a silent appeal to Artemis to get the conversation back on track.

"What exactly is preventing our return to normalcy, aside from the predicted unsightly deaths?"

"You two were not supposed to be poking around in my lab, you know," Foaly stated, evading the question. "This is really all your fault."

"Why did you leave your machine running, then?" Holly inquired. "Weren't you afraid that someone might come in and steal its secrets?"

"Also," Artemis continued, building off of Holly's inquiry, "why did you have, of all things, a bundle of _wires_ sitting on the floor? The People haven't needed wires in many years – one hundred eight, to be precise."

Foaly merely whistled, but did not otherwise reply, instead opting to allow the truth to dawn on the unfortunate couple. Three… two…

"Oh, this was a set-up!" Juliet grinned, not allowing herself to dwell on the fact that Dom probably would've seen this earlier. "You wanted to punish them by gender-bending them!"

"How eloquently put," Foaly sighed, "but essentially, yes. You've all been told repeatedly not to enter my lab without me."

"If my conclusions are correct, which I suspect that they are," Artemis sighed, "then you will force us to wander around the building like this while you 'test' your machine, and will then change us back before I am scheduled to return to the surface."

"Correct, Mud boy – well, Mud _girl_, now," Foaly snickered. "Holly, how does it feel to no longer be the crazy girl captain?"

"Horrible. I'd greatly appreciate it if you fixed this now."

"You heard your Arty – you two must wander around while I fix this. Shoo." And so, quite abruptly, the three bipeds found themselves locked out of Foaly's lab. By this point, word had spread, and some intrigued observers were doing what intrigued observers do best – observing. Holly did not appreciate this extra attention.

"I know that some of us have the day off, but don't you have anything better to do?" Her glare was sharp, due to the trying circumstances. "Kindly leave us to our misery – and Foaly, you'd better not be recording this!" she called back through the locked door, forgetting that the room was soundproof.

Foaly waved a gleeful farewell, and the couple in denial decided that this was, after all, completely Foaly's fault.

Juliet giggled, something she seemed to be doing frequently this fine fairy afternoon. This day was providing her with such excellent blackmail… she might even be able to 'persuade' Artemis to play in a mud puddle with Beckett, if things continued in this trend! _It's too bad that Dom's too big for Haven,_ she thought a bit giddily. _He's missing out on such excellent fun, and will pretend not to believe half of what I say upon my return. Pity… he always misses their most intense flirting…._ "Why don't we go stir up some Trouble?" she suggested, feigning innocence.

Holly merely rolled her eyes; Artemis, to his horror, found himself putting his hands on his hips in disgust. He was able to glare at Juliet quite seriously for a few moments before the girl in question and the elf next to her both let forth great gales of laughter – most unkindly, he thought. It was if this female version of his body were acting on its own, striking poses he was mortified to perform… and two of the very few beings whom he considered his friends were laughing at him. Loudly, too, and in the middle of the hallway. This, unfortunately, attracted the attention of the fairy whose name had elicited this humiliating display.

"Not to interrupt or anything, but would someone be kind enough to explain what the hell is going on here?" There stood Trouble, looking more than a bit confused.

"Ah, speak of the devil and the devil cometh forth!" Juliet beamed, and stepped forward to explain the predicament.

"So you're telling me that those two switched genders?" Trouble inquired, attempting to remove his eyes from the pair – rather, from the suddenly-female member of the pair.

"Obviously," Artemis stated, his disdain transmitted by his eyebrows.

Trouble gulped. Holly noticed his discomfort, and inquired with a grin, "Do you prefer paler females, Trouble?"

The fairy in question gave out a sort of strangled yelp. Juliet was having a splendid day indeed; she leaned over to Holly and asked, in a rather carrying whisper, "Don't you think that Artemis makes an awfully pretty girl? I think I like him better this way. What about you?"

Holly glanced at Artemis (who had gone rather still), felt the slight coloration of her cheeks, and then simply hummed a response – thereby both answering and evading the question. Trouble used this moment of distraction to escape this frankly confusing version of Fowl. He spent the rest of the day in his office in relative peace and high embarrassment.

The awkward encounters, however, were far from over. Over the course of the next hour and a half, the two were mocked, avoided, and generally made uncomfortable when recognized. The most horrendous encounter was particularly horrible for Holly, as she was the one whom it affected most. Now, Holly was generally a kind elf, and didn't hold grudges without good reason, but she had never been particularly fond of Corporal Frond. The woman was a bit of an airhead, and that never boded well for dangerous work. In the long and the short of it, Holly resented her for being truly idiotic – to quote the Captain, a bimbo – and still managing to hold down an LEP job, while Holly's own job had been questioned repeatedly for her attempting to do the right thing. Unfortunately for Holly, the cosmos seemed to want to have a bit of a laugh at her expense that particular day. Hence, the airhead did not recognize Holly, but did notice the moderately attractive new male elf.

"Why, hello there!" she giggled slightly, leaning closer than necessary to offer a hand to shake. "Are you new? I think that I'd remember a face like yours, so you must be."

"Don't you recognize him?" Juliet piped up, alerting Frond to the presence of the two Mud people. "He's Captain Short's cousin, Holland."

"Woo, you're her spitting image – though I must say, her features are _much_ more handsome on you." She batted her eyelashes sickeningly. Artemis snorted, drawing Frond's attention. "And you are?"

"Oh, this is Artemis Fowl, obviously," Juliet beamed, again speaking for someone other than herself. "I may have accidentally pushed him into Foaly's new gender-bending machine when it was on."

Frond laughed aloud. "And has Captain Short seen him yet?"

"My ears are completely functional, as I'm sure you're well aware," Artemis grumbled, folding his arms and unconsciously popping his hip to one side. 'Holland' emitted a rather undignified snort.

"Yes, she has," Juliet beamed. "She nearly laughed herself sick."

"It's a shame that she wasn't genderbent as well," Frond sighed, a bit wistfully.

"Why?" 'Holland' inquired.

"Well, I just think it would be interesting to see how they'd react to each other when the sexes are switched," came the reply, with a shadow of a blush. "I mean," she lowered her voice, "it's a bit scandalous, because they're not even the same species – and I don't think it's ever really happened before with a law-abiding fairy – but really…!" She trailed off, giggling madly.

"What?" Artemis half-growled, a bit tired of this nonsense; he shared Holly's opinion of Frond.

"Well, it's obvious that you and Captain Short are positively mad about each other," Frond explained happily, causing Juliet to double over in silent laughter and the couple in question to adopt nearly identical slack-jawed stares of surprise. She blathered on obliviously, "It's some of the best gossip roaring around Haven right now – I'm surprised that you didn't know yet, and even more shocked that Captain Short hasn't found out. Oh, well – no harm, no Fowl, right?" she giggled again, winking at 'Holland.' "Promise you won't tell your cousin?"

"You have my word," Holly ground out, her fists balling. Artemis pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his hair out of his face.

"Awesome! I need to go," Frond beamed, slipping past the still-laughing Juliet, "but I'll look you up later! Ciao!"

"Ciao," Holly called back with a fake smile. As soon as Frond was out of earshot, she thumped her head against Artemis's arm. "I can't stand her."

"She is rather dim." He patted her head somewhat awkwardly. "I'm more surprised that no one's caused an upset about us if the gossip mill is alive and well; yes, the gossip might be unproven, but people – even the People – are amazingly petty."

"Yes, but they pretty much owe the Butlers and us their lives and livelihood, so they can't exactly get rid of me," Holly mumbled into his sleeve.

"In addition, I get the distinct feeling that Haven would be rendered incapable of functioning within a month of your absence. You are, after all, an extremely busy elf." He smiled softly.

"Gee, I never noticed, Arty." She smiled up at him, and Juliet nearly gagged.

"Stop acting like you're in some cheesy romance novel!" she griped at them, straightening from her dissipated laughing fit. "You," she said, pointing dramatically at Artemis, "are not supposed to be that smooth! And you," (she now pointed with equal drama at Holly) "are supposed to bite back with some sarcastic retort! Stop acting so out-of-character!"

While the rant continued, complete with some amusing but frankly childish foot-stomping, Holly whispered to Artemis, "What is she going on about?"

"Lately, she's been writing… ah, how to put it?" He paused. "She's been writing little _stories_ about the two of us. They're rather distasteful, if you ask me."

"Do I want to know what those stories contain?" she sighed, reluctantly stepping back from him.

His hand fell back to his side, first brushing her bangs to one side of her face. "I do not recommend asking unless you have a masochistic desire to spend several hours cleaning out your ears and internal eye."

"What is the likelihood that she'll tell me anyway?"

"Very high, unfortunately."

"I pity you for having to live in the same mansion as her."

"Want to trade places?"

"With you or with her?"

"With her, I suppose." He reddened almost imperceptibly.

"Hmm…" Holly tapped her chin and gazed up at him, considering. She smiled teasingly. "I don't think that it would be worth it, as I'd have to look after Myles and Beckett most of the time if I were to take her place."

"How unfortunately true," he sighed in return, as Juliet's rant came to an end.

"…which is why you two should just hurry up and have babies." The bodyguard nodded, very pleased with her reasoning.

Artemis and Holly were not amused, but were saved from the bother of answering her by the arrival of a friend. No. 1, after recovering from his laughing fit at the sight of them (and concurring with Juliet's point that since all of Haven already knew about them, they should just make it official), offered to switch them back. "I learned how to do that about a month ago," he explained. "I've only really tested it on swear toads so far, but I think it should work."

"But that's no fun!" Juliet protested, as Artemis and Holly voiced their own, more logical protests. No. 1, in turn, hurried over to the bodyguard and whispered something in her ear. A large, frightening grin grew upon her face. "I take it back. That _is_ fun."

"Should we be afraid?" Artemis inquired tiredly, already fully aware that the answer would be positive.

Holly looked at him. "Juliet has that grin on her face after hearing something that No. 1 said… no, there's no reason at all for us to be remotely afraid. We might as well just sprout wings and fly off into the sunset because we're so unafraid."

"Sarcasm does wonders for you," Artemis noted.

"Right back at 'cha, Arty."

FLASH.

…And with that bright purple flash of light, accompanied by a slight hazel pop, the two lost consciousness. When they reawakened, they were back to their proper sexes; Foaly, who had come to announce that it would take at least a week for him to be completely sure that his machine would work – a blatant lie, as it had obviously worked all along – pouted that his lovely plan had been ruined. Juliet giggled fiendishly, and No. 1 was very pleased. It was not until Artemis and Holly were saying a private good-bye that Holly discovered what No. 1 had whispered to Juliet – and not until after that that the teasing began, and the rumor was verified by undeniable proof.

For once their lips had parted, Artemis's eyes were once again made a mirror image of Holly's – perfectly mismatched.

**Thus endeth my 2****nd**** Artemis Fowl fan fiction. Did you enjoy it?**

**I apologize for any OoCness you may find. It's been a while since I last read the series (shame on me, I know).**

**Let me know what you thought – please drop me a review! :D**


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